Body of 'Ugliest Woman in the World' returns to Mexico for burial more than 150 years after death

Julia Pastrana made headlines and was exploited almost 153 years ago and was labelled as the ugliest woman in the world, for her entire body was covered with hair.

Pastrana was born in Mexico in 1834 and suffered from congenital terminal hypertrichosis, which left her face and body covered in thick hair.

In 1854, she was bought by a Mexican customs administrator and he began exhibiting her through the U.S. and Canada. While in New York, she married Theodore Lent, who became her manager.

Posters exhibiting Julia Pastrana

Even after her death in 1860, her body was exhibited across the world.

Her body eventually ended up in a storage room at an Oslo research institute, and after learning of the body's whereabouts, visual artist Laura Anderson Barbata campaigned to have it returned to Mexico.

Barbata, who lives in New York but hails from Mexico City, eventually won her decade-long battle and on Tuesday, Pastrana's body will finally be buried in Sinaloa de Leyva.

Read more about it at: Mail Online
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Posted in: Julia Pastrana, Mexico, News, Offbeat, Ugliest Woman